Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The past century provides us with three of the greatest
villains of all time based on the number of human beings killed. Mao, Stalin,
and Hitler used modern technology to murder millions and protect their positions
of power. Hitler was probably the oddest case as he used racial purification to justify murder using a
corruption of the theory of Eugenics. It
is estimated that Mao is responsible for 40-70 million deaths, Stalin 50
million, and Hitler 12 million.

The Roman Empire had its share of villains also. We have seen
psychotics like Caligula, Nero, Domitian, and Commodus, sprinkled throughout its history, but with Septimius Severus and his son we reach a new
definition of evil and villainy. Here are the father and son.

As Gibbon puts it:

The unforgiving temper
of Severus, stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge where there was
no room for apprehension..

And so his cruelty became a mask for misrule as he allowed the
army to take on a new form which would threaten the future of the empire.

Severus possessed a
considerable share of vigor and ability; but the daring soul of the first
Caesar, or the deep policy of Augustus, were scarcely equal to the task of
curbing the insolence of the victorious legions. By gratitude, by misguided
policy, by seeming necessity, Severus was reduced to relax the nerves of
discipline.

Elated by success, the
army became enervated by luxury, and felt themselves raised above their
subjects by their dangerous privileges, so that they became incapable of
military fatigue, oppressive to the country, and impatient of a just
subordination.

As Severus ruled Rome as his possession and the army became
a threat, he was also faced with the conflict between his two sons Caracalla
and Geta, who despised each other.

Severus foretold that
the weaker of his two sons would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who would in
his turn, be ruined by his own vices.

Severus died in York, England after a foolish expedition
north of the Antonine Wall, outliving Caracalla’s attempts to create a mutiny
designed to murder him. With Severus’ death, and by his recommendation, the
army named Caracalla and Geta co-emperors in 211 A.D. For a while the brothers
tried to make their relationship work, dividing the imperial palace into two
parts and putting up walls to separate them. Later, they sought to divide the
empire in two: one brother in the east and the other in the west. Before this
plan was implemented, however, Caracalla had Geta murdered in front of their mother.

Caracalla rushed to the praetorian camp and lay prostrate on the ground begging the guard to understand he killed his brother in self-defense. One of his first acts as sole emperor was to kill 20,000 persons who were guilty of association with Geta. The reason given for this atrocity was that he might encounter them on the street and be reminded of his brother! Even some who uttered Geta’s name in public were struck down.

A year after Geta's death Caracalla left Rome never
to return. He traveled throughout the eastern provinces overseeing the murder
of thousands. In Alexandria, for example,
he ordered a general massacre killing several thousand for no reason. And so the empire
under Caracalla degraded further as Gibbon tells us:

The liberality of the
father has been restrained by prudence, and his indulgence to the troops was
tempered by firmness and authority. The careless profusion of the son was the
policy of one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the army and the empire. The vigor of the soldiers,
instead of being confirmed by the severe discipline of camps, melted away in
the luxury of cities.

But Caracalla would come to his end soon enough. Hearing a
prophesy that the Praetorian Prefect Macrinius would become emperor, members of
Caracalla’s contingent sent warning letters to the emperor. Caracalla, in
the midst of watching a chariot race when he received them, gave the dispatches to
Macrinius unopened and asked him to see if they contained anything important.
Upon reading the dispatches, Macrinius realized his life was in danger and had
the emperor assassinated.

The next 67 years would see 23 emperor rise and fall. The empire had become a military dictatorship with the choice of emperor dictated by the capriciousness of the army.